


Dark Currents

by sigurfox



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Blasphemy, Ear Piercings, Fealty, Fear, Gifts, M/M, Magic, No Sex, Pain, Shapeshifting, Threats, Vala/maia, Violence, angbang, impatient rude Melkor, it's written months ago, now the author is too depressed to care if it sucks, scared uncertain Mairon, threadbare theme, too many descriptions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-02
Updated: 2018-02-02
Packaged: 2019-03-11 03:42:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13515873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sigurfox/pseuds/sigurfox
Summary: Mairon finally gives in and swears fealty to the Lord of Gifts.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: English is not my native language.

Darkness sprawls across the sky, billowing in from the east. Clouds’ brassy bellies hang low and menacing. The shadow of the approaching storm consumes the colours from the earth, robs the mountains’ slopes of sharpness and contrast.

Trees bow down, moan in hopeless wrath and fear, bending low, their branches torn like paper limbs.

From the edge of the cliff Mairon looks down and sees pillars of basalt sand on the beach rise and curl in multiple small tornadoes. Tinted aeneous in the wavering illumination, the air vibrates and turns grave with the dark and invigorating scent of rain. The humidity presses down, asphyxiating.

And something sinister lurks beneath the veil of this storm.

First tiny raindrops like glass shards fall, unpleasant. They dig into Mairon’s hot skin, almost painfully, raising goosebumps. He hugs himself, rubs his hands against his upper arms, trying to erase the detested sensation.

Mairon turns to go, hastens steps, hoping to leave these deserted, exposed heights before the storm catches him. But it’s too close.

The unknown yearning springs up to life in his heart. It squeezes and twists, and deep down inside he knows what causes it.

Then everything stops for a heartbeat, and the world holds its breath.

It’s him. A streak of searing silver splits the sky, followed by a low ominous roar a second later. The sea worries, shows its displeasure, the waves snarl and shoot up into the furious grey sky.

In reply, the ebony gale laughs, sending a new branchy lightning down into the water. Stillness is wiped by the growing rumble of thunder, rolling across the vast sea, waves, beach, rocks, finally reaching Mairon’s ears.

His heart misses a beat as the impact resonates through his chest. He hears his Ëala respond to the heat of the incandescent lightning, relishing in the familiar notes.

This is nothing like he has ever seen before. Yes, this storm can have only one origin. The force which once was banished returns from the east.

The air crackles, electrified and irate. The taut tension and a sense of imminent apparition leaves no place for doubt. Spiteful wind stings and slaps, rising swift and strong. Shrouding the firmament, a great current of air - a vortex - forms above Mairon’s head, and he finds himself in the epicenter of the descending hurricane.

It seems as if the storm weaves itself into the fabric of the world, tugging on all the right and wrong strings, carelessly disturbing, dislocating the notes that hold the reality.

Such raw fundamental power personified in one being… Mairon almost forgot what it is like to face this supremacy. It terrifies him and strikes with awe, adoration, worship. His Ëala, suddenly caught up in the very core of this inharmonious turmoil, shivers, feeling unpleasant, uncomfortable, _wanted_.

The brilliant monstrous shape is guessed among the dark tempest. It is black, yet radiant in the same time. Perilous in its absorbing cruel beauty. Mairon doesn’t know how something like that is real. He can’t take his eyes of the volatile silhouette before him.

How many times in deep secret he dreamt of it - of audience, of an opportunity. Of knowledge. How many times in the furthest corners of his mind he tried whispering to himself discordant tunes. Intrigued and afraid, Mairon marveled at how fresh and potent a melody sounded then, at how bold and aberrant those newly awakened visions and thoughts were.

Now in all his glory and splendor Melkor returns, and Mairon can’t resist the long forgotten, thoroughly suppressed adoration rousing in his heart again. There is no one in Ёa like _him_.

But before he has time to grapple with his emotions the enormous massif of harsh wind slams into his chest and knocks him down. He falls down hard onto the cold wet stones, registering a flare of pain in his back. Mairon gasps under the force of the blow. And in the next moment he realizes he is being dragged across the cruel rocky surface. Columns of dust soar up around.

The wind howls like a living creature, it is so strong and violent, it shoves dense layers of air in his face. He chokes and can’t take a proper breath. Raindrops fall like cobbles. He squints up and around, shielding his eyes with his hand, and then Melkor’s magnificence tumbles down on him like the weight of the void itself. There is no sky, no stars, no light until the flashing of silver and gold announces the impression’s untruth, until giant sparks cut through the black oblivion.

Under such a vicious attack Mairon’s flames struggle to hold on when his corporeal heart pounds in his chest a frantic frightened rhythm.

After several futile attempts to get up, with a great effort Mairon manages to turn over onto his stomach. He tries to crawl away but something snatches at his ankle, as if an invisible whip wraps around, its touch impalpable and yet unmistakable, for it drags him back into the hurricane’s core, closer and closer to the will commanding it, _being_  it.

Inexorable streams dance and collide, allowing this deafening war boom in happy rampage.

Sharp granules of sand and rocks under Mairon's palms cut the skin, digging in, plowing bloody rows along the lines on his calloused palms, when he tries to catch onto something and stop his sliding to the doom.

Mairon knows he must have screamed, but he can’t hear his own voice among this noise. The impenetrable wall of sound suddenly surrounds him. The music of this ferocity stretches its tendrils out towards Mairon’s holy Ëala and pulls at it. 

Panic wells up, and his mind crumbles in scattered thoughts. He finds himself severed from the world, his home, his people. All he can do is stumble upon the mighty dead barrier, already knowing well that nothing goes and nothing comes past this turmoil.

Surprisingly, the wind and rain subside, the frenzy shifts and its assault turns dry and hot, it strokes his skin in violent caress, insistent and probing. It is not painful anymore and he can feel his own flame spring back to life inside him again.

He turns around to rest on his elbows and sees the greatest of the Ainur take physical form. The air thickens and the column of ice and fire transforms into a shape, coagulates, weaving a murky figure. As one enthralled, hypnotized, Mairon watches in wonder and flickering adoration how the mightiest dweller of the world clothes himself in flesh and bone and corporeal attire in all but one short swift motion and a flash of light.

Dark and beautiful he stands above Mairon, sneering in benevolent condescension, the ultimate superiority. His gaze weights Mairon down like a mountain.

Melkor's posh of a storm continues on its own, moves up to tear at his brother’s acreages, to rumble above the mountains, gardens and seas, and Mairon finds at last he can move freely. He scrambles to his feet, despite the growing urge just to curl up and hide. He finds that he’d rather not behold the terrible view, terrible and beautiful, so he lowers his eyes down to stare at Melkor’s high iron-tipped boots.

Dark One is dressed in fur-trimmed leather hunter outfit, practical fingerless gloves. Convenient, too realistic for the show he put before. Unsubtle plunging through the sky in furious mode for all to see, rampaging this pure peaceful landscape. Completely alien to this place, unwanted, feared and hated.

Several knives are attached to his wide belt, behind his back there is a bow and a quiver of arrows.

To put the ever shifting in an unsettling way sinister aura aside he looks like disheveled, untidy, worn-out being on a hunt in the woods. In this pitiless seeker hypostasis he is a dark version of Oromë, an Oromë stripped off fame and opulence.

Mairon feels the connection to the world, its holy dwellers and their creatures reestablish. Safely linked to the reality he touches the radiant certainty in his soul, where a moment ago was emptiness. The cacophony still rings in his ears, keeps worming restlessly its way deep inside his being, and he shivers at the need to claw at his chest to ease the heart trembles. For one maddening moment he wants to beg for clemency but the gnawing sensation stops on its own accord, abrupt and confusing. As if right now Melkor reads his mind.

“I saw you,” Melkor says at last, his voice all-encompassing like fire fumes,  “Sneaking in the night like a thief, shy and afraid in taking shelters. You spend time in secret places, hiding your creations, your most exquisite work. Here, deep in those northern caves. Does it not exhaust you?”

Mairon’s incredulous look makes Melkor smirk. “What? You thought I cannot perceive something that happens in my realm.”

“But it is not your realm,” Mairon blurts out, his defiance outweighing his fear. But Melkor only snorts and leaves it with no remark.

He goes on, “I must say I’m impressed. You are far more talented than I expected. It's such a disappointment to see you wasting your exceptional potential on serving those who do not appreciate it, those who do not need it in the first place, who only want you to perform tasks that are given to you, blindly and mechanically, to labour like a slave to nothing but their own glory. With neither satisfaction nor reward.”

It is not like that, no, it can't be... if Mairon stops repeating it he might fall for this hideous speech, for it resonates with his own concealed thoughts. Aulë is a good lord, a good Vala, generous and mighty, he is so much better, he is better. Everything the Dark One says is a lie, he must remember it and not give in.

“Oh poor Maia, I can see the cogwheels in your pretty head rotate, running idle.”

Melkor’s posture changes, as he grounds into the earth beneath him more firmly when he says, “I offer you freedom and infinite possibilities, power-“

His deep voice shifts as he speaks, Mairon traces ancient undertones, strands of splendor of the cosmic era in it. This voice almost a physical thing, it crawls under Mairon’s aflame skin.

“-and your own dominion to rule over under my reign.”

Mairon presses his palms to his ears but there is no escape from this penetrating force, pulsing around and within him.

“Pledge allegiance to me and I will give you the world you so crave for.”

The Dark Hunter's words echo like quickening drums inside him, a sound too massive and cavernous for his mind. It’s an agony to hang on it, and the tension still goes up.

“No…” Mairon shakes his head, “No, you are lying, I should-”

 “You should not! You don’t owe them anything. You have no idea what you are refusing. If you do not join me, you will regret it till the end of Arda.”

“I’m a fool,” Mairon whispers, “Fool to talk to you. Don’t temp me, leave me alone…”

The pressure of power surges up around Mairon and becomes unbearable. He stays on his feet, but still despite his wish lets out a moan of pain, “Ah! Stop it! You miscalculated, I am not the one you need…”

All of a sudden, all pain goes away, and this sensation slices as if with the sharpest of knives, and leaves Mairon unsuspended by it anymore. Strained muscles relax, and like a doll with cut off strings he collapses on the icy soil.

“You are fond of stones, I see. Good. For here on the ground that you love so much,” spits Melkor, “is your place. Grope in the mud if you wish so, like a blind you will stay forever.” Melkor's voice reverberates through Arda's roots, in the earth's low hum Mairon reads this condemnation again and again.

Mindful of abrupt movements, Mairon scrambles to his feet. He feels so lonesome and cold under the cruelest of gazes, pinned in place by such an affronting scorn of someone so vast and splendid, someone whom he admires so much.

Oh he wants to, he wants to cling and adhere and bathe in all the Melkor's glory and all comfort his exceptional soul would suggest. But Mairon should stand up for his own pride. His own feelings confuse him, he is losing his composure to a primeval and purely spiritualistic need. Anger boils in his veins. He does _not_ belong to him. To anyone.

“You will not know rest,” Melkor pauses for a second and moves to touch his fingertips to Mairon’s chin. “If you ask - you can only ask - I will grant you my pardon and my favour.”

This material contact is so ordinary, and yet Mairon shudders. “I do NOT want anything from you!” He snarls, breaking the spell and the contact by slapping at Melkor’s hand.

Shadow passes over Melkor’s face, a dangerous amethyst light flashes in his eyes. The simple touch is gone, is replaced with a new kind of dark caress - Melkor backhands him.

Before Mairon can fully register the nasty pain erupting across his cheekbone, his head snaps to the side, he stumbles back a few paces with the ferocity of the blow. His foot slips on the rocks and he falls.

He grunts, landing on his bum and elbow, and presses his palm to his cheek in an unconscious attempt to stop stars of anguish from dancing across the bruising skin.

His vision swims. But he still can clearly imagine how Melkor regards him with a cold expression on his beautiful ancient face. Impenetrable in its crooked wisdom and cunningness.

And then his feeble effort to stir and get up gets aborted, as Melkor shoves Mairon back down on the ground with a kick. He steps over Mairon, his feet on both sides of Mairon's waist. Panic bursts anew like a sick firework.

Mairon flickers up at him angrily, too bothered and proud not to try and convey his hatred through this one fast glance. Although he is not sure whether he truly hates Melkor, or he hates himself for getting caught. For loving this situation, this kind of attention, the detection.

Primeval terror and want both settle deep inside as if knowing the future.

The Dark Hunter straddles Mairon’s waist, pinning him to the ground, brutally severing his attempts to wiggle away. Melkor’s large hand grips Mairon's throat vice-like with force greater than necessary. Steely fingers close around his neck, digging into flesh, palm pressing in a sick manner. Fingertips cruelly push onto the thundering pulse under Mairon’s jaw.

The pressure upon his windpipe is nauseating, and Mairon chokes. His hands fly to Melkor's wrist, his own fingers seem so small and powerless on strong muscles and the harsh leather.

His Ëala thrashes inside the Fana unable to leave. Instinctively pleads for mercy, but Melkor's colossal spirit carries out his assault, engulfing him, pushing down. Melkor looks like someone who teaches the annoying subjugate a lesson. And he loves doing it with a little more violence than anyone would deem fit.

Mairon squeezes his eyes shut, as black spots emerge in his view. Blood pumps with deafening fervor in his ears.

“Oh well, I think you do.” The constrainer murmurs.

Oh how Mairon hates his Fana now. He tries to shift his being into a more elemental state, to burn his way out of this trap, but realizes that he can’t. Melkor blocks him on all fronts and all he can do now is to hope for the Cruel One’s lenience and mercy – not much of a solace. His heels dig into the ground, nails scratch hard leather to no avail, severed gasps bring no relief and those terrible captivating eyes bore into his mind, corroding at once every defense with horrifying ease.

“What, the admirable Maia? You see? However great your will is, it’s nothing against me. You have no power to defy me. Submit to me. Under my guidance you’ll be able to overtop the brightest retinue of my usurper brother.”

Mairon’s inner flames wither and droop useless, notes sustaining his existence shudder, slither out of place, disperse around. His music falters, fail and turn into dimming cacophony.

He feels corrupted, dirtied up, stripped of holiness. Is this what death feels like? He never thought it would matter so much to him.

Finally the Dark Hunter lessens the pressure upon Mairon’s throat. Just a fracture, but Mairon gasps, gulps down his relief with air, as Melkor whispers, leaning close.

“I can teach you how to stand against this type of assault. Imagine what heights you could reach knowing this lore. No Vala would ever agree to teach you this, even if they could. But they can’t. For it’s only in my music. I bring inevitable change into this world. Something you yearn for. Sometimes it can only be brought in through violence. Deprived of real challenge a talented spirit like you is only destined to languish in degrading routine. You wouldn’t admit it now, I know, but listen to your heart. I remember… and you do too. You have always wanted to sing with me.”

It is not true, Mairon thinks. Progress, change… But not through violence, no. What is it worth?

“And moreover,” Melkor rises on outstretched arm above him, “I can teach you how to perform this assault.”

The last sentence grazes Mairon’s soul like a dull blade.

“Let me go… please...” Ghosts of words topple over his lips, almost inaudible, powerless, frail. 

Melkor releases him in one abrupt multi plane motion, both Fana and Ëala. He gets up and steps aside. Mairon curls up on his side coughing and gulping air, hugging himself like a frightened mortal. Tears of pain, frustration, anger and humiliation flow down and Mairon wipes them away, aggressive, annoyed by the mess, both on his face and in his soul.

He shivers on the ground and then, touching his freedom to change, slips into a more elemental state. Pain disappears, he’s a shape of wildfire feeding on the mold underneath him.

Melkor’s voice make his flames quaver and Mairon registers: “ _Do not make me regret wasting my time on these blandishments.”_ The cold gust, a torrent of new words: “ _You should know by now, my patience is running thin pretty quickly, Maia._ ”

The Dark Hunter shatters his own Fana and turns into a shadow. It grows, solidifies, stretches, rising to cover the sky. A hot whoosh of black air rushes onto him like a pack of blood-thirsty ravens, and Mairon braces himself for new kind of abuse but none comes. The air just washes through him and over him, for a few moments interfusing with his fire, before storming away faster than thought.

Finally Mairon dares to clothe in Fana again and stand up on wobbly legs and look around - the mountains’ slopes are hissing, shedding rocks. The wood is in ruin, the trees are burnt. Their charred remains stick out, forlorn. Blackened earth, stones deprived of their colours. Down in the valleys it is raining gently and far in the east the black storm can still be visible.

His Ëala throbs like a giant sore irritated wound. He straightens his stiffened body and looks over himself, dirty and disheveled. That will not do.

Tongues of flame lick across his feverish skin. Mairon shifts into his elemental form again. He shifts several times, just because he can. Just because now there is nothing else he can do. All is not enough anymore.


	2. Chapter 2

On the high mountain’s slopes, severe and cold, tall gloomy trees grow. Dark green sprawling spruce and impassive old soughing yew trees: all are touched with hints of malice.

Ghosts of terror dwell in this place, and Mairon knows he’s on the right path.

This is the little wicked kingdom the Mighty One established here, in the utmost north of the sacred land. Mairon slowly forges through dense thickets. A strange place indeed. On one hand, pine trees licked raw by frosty winds. Their bare slim trunks, rough and calloused, have fissured bark colored rusty and bronze. On the other - fir trees’ wide and catchy branches resembling beasts’ paws strewed heavily with snow. Under the weight of snow and malevolence, spilled so carelessly in the air, they bend to the ice-bound ground, creating secret homes underneath.

Bulky gardens of dormant trees, that is. They all stand crooked, intertwined, bowed, disfigured in one way or another, as if caught dancing to a tune heard only by them, _discordant tune_.

Walking, Mairon spots several gleaming eyes here and there, peering with curiosity and caution out of their lairs. _His_ spies?

The sky is low and ashen, no stars are twinkling tonight save for those amongst the entangled shrubs on the ground. The crime’s only silent witnesses.

Finally Mairon arrives to a wide clearing. The stockade of trees around looks like circling guard.

Such an unspeakable absurdity. Reckless wish. Unconsciously picking up strands of unfamiliar music here and there, Mairon finds himself unable to resist its appeal.

Yet, worry and nervousness are gnawing at his insides, twisting and pulling, it gets to his head, dispersing his rushing thoughts about to the sound of blood’s beating in his ears. Irritably he wraps his cloak more tightly around himself, hides his cold and clammy hands.

He has never been so far from home.

With an unexpected gush of wind trees creak and move their branches somewhere above his head, and a whole hoard of hideous small creatures rush into Mairon’s face. They sweep by in one powerful stream, their wings slap Mairon’s body, claws catch on skin and hair.

Mairon stops dead in his tracks, but his heart jumps up to his throat as instinct bids him to recoil covering his face. Thunderbolt similar to low laughter erupts above him when the tiny beasts leave him.

Mairon uncurls from his indignant defensive stance and throws a glance to the opposite of the lurid glade where the screeching hoard goes, rising and falling as one. Drawing narrowing spirals in the air, they fly towards their master. A giant figure among giant trees.

The shape, clad in shadow and venom, is immersed in invisible power furling around him. Mairon's bewildered gaze stumbles upon the Mighty One and he stares.

Melkor’s hair float around and above his head like a cloud of anthracite smoke. Mercury silver eyes blaze on his pale sharp-featured face.

As if drawn with jagged straight lines, penurious, harsh and yet accurate, he is all acute edges and wrong angles. He’s contradictory, contrastive; Mairon reads it in unsubtle riotous tunes about him.

Heavy gait, chopped plain gestures, tension in his ever increasing haste. His presence is constraining like iron tethers. As though carved from obsidian stone, he towers like a dark monument, nerve-racking in his momentous stooped stillness. Huge and immovable as a tameless volcano.

One can do nothing but adjust their own tunes to inharmonious vibrations of Melkor’s massive Ëala. And Mairon trembles slightly when his inner flame flickers, conforming. It’s not altogether unpleasant, after all, he must admit.

There is also strange ethereality in Melkor too, piercing as crisp winter air. He’s the electrified strain in the air before a storm. He’s a patience on the verge of snapping; he’s change and decay, thin and unfathomable like a quiescent wrath of nature.

Mairon senses the inevitable inclination despite his will. He’s being _lured into a trap_. But on the other hand learning from the mightiest Ainu means gaining bits of all Valar powers. Mairon gulps, uneasy. His heart keeps droning on - _you would prevail above all Maiar._

When he meets Melkor’s eyes his gaze instantly brazes Mairon to the spot. He’s locked, pinned in place by the liquid metal which gets under his skin, into his bones, into his Ëala.

Pinpricks of former adoration return, quickly turning into a hot avalanche of feelings. Grotesque apparitions, show-off blizzards, the extremities. Direct approach to everything, hasty and explosive. Creative audacity and fundamental carnage. Limitless possibilities, countless roads…

The barely there smell of sulfur hanging in the woods weaves itself into Mairon’s hair. Long loose strands whip about his face as he squints at the tall dark appearance in front of him, half elemental, half physical. The wind claws at Mairon, raising a nasty chill on his skin.

“You’re late,” Melkor says.

Absolutely unperturbed by the wind, his voice – even like this, tinted in discontent – caresses his skin.

“Did you curse me?” Mairon utters without batting an eyelash, choosing to ignore his heart’s annoying race. He sticks his chin out and folds his arms in front of him.

Melkor scans him for a second. “No.”

Mairon wants to run. Run _to_ him, run _from_ him. Savouring this agony he waits and waits like he always did even when he didn’t really know what he was waiting for. Melkor's joy at his humble arrival numbs him, that’s how palpable it is. Although it doesn’t feel like disgrace.

Even in his solitary exile, year by year, Melkor’s splendor has been growing. And now he truly excels his brother at royalty. The resemblance between them has always been stunning, regarding the ephemeral vibes emanating from Melkor’s immense spirit - the exact opposite of Manwё’s and far more grand.

Chaos is not just a mere mayhem, it’s both order and disorder, entwined and interchangeable. In the core of his soul Melkor holds so much more than a means to sanctioned cosmogony. And Mairon is interested in art and wisdom, why should he not like Melkor’s methods? Out of sheer aversion of broken rhythms and hectic pace of his music? The thing is… Mairon doesn’t mind worshipping him the way he wishes. Why not give this Vala the obeisance he so craves for?

Mairon weirdly loves the idea of doing it, subjugating to a splendid Vala in more ways than a Maia should. It strangely does not bother him. He doesn’t mind giving his everything to his master along with unnatural worship and faith.

“Come here,” Melkor gestures carelessly.

Slowly Mairon approaches, dead branches crunch and the frost-smitten earth hisses underneath his steps, wishing to wake up. Mairon hesitates. Their last encounter after all was not very pleasant.

He stops, keeping a respectful distance between them. Melkor closes it himself.

“I would never curse such a precious asset.” He murmurs as if to himself. His eyes wander across Mairon’s face, scrutinizing each and every detail. “I’ve only planted a seed,” Melkor raises his hand and touches the tip of his finger to Mairon’s forehead, “Right there.” Mairon hates it, he wants to swat his hand away.

“I did not rob you. I only showed you possibilities. Now it is your move.”

Mairon looks at him bitterly. He hates this fragility. “Now I have no choice.”

“Neither do I.” He says, “I must get back what was taken from me.”

Triumph in Melkor’s eyes sends sparks of fear down Mairon’s spine. And also excitement.

“Well, Maia? We have wasted enough time.”

He of all beings is running out of time. Mairon almost wants to laugh. What’s time to you, o Time Itself, he almost asks but something warns him against it.

The heavy silence lasts, stretches thin between them like something substantial, and it is unbearable. Only to do something Mairon twitches but every movement is wrong, every thought is wrong except for _one_. Only one thing he must do now.

Slowly, as if still in disbelieve, he lowers himself to the ground. Barehanded, humbled, vulnerable, he tames his fire at the vicious bite of ice under his knees.

Throat tight, in hoarse whisper he pronounces an oath, his own voice sounds strange to him.

“I foreswear Aulë and all the Valar and I devote myself to you, O King. On my Ëala I swear to be faithful to you, to serve you without deceit and obey you inviolately. I promise to work ever only to your triumph and glory and never cause you any harm. Please, Lord, accept my oath.”

Mairon bows his head and holds out his hands towards Melkor in total submission.

After a few excruciatingly loud heartbeats of nothing The Dark Vala steps closer. Mairon still doesn’t dare breathe. Melkor’s warm hands envelop his own in a gentle but firm grip and only then Mairon raises his head.

Satisfied smirk is smeared across Melkor’s face. Victorious, his spirit sings, and Mairon finds himself singing along to the brightest darkness ever imaginable.

“I accept your oath, Mairon.”

Mairon feels something inside him break. The relief that floods his mind afterwards is almost too much to process. He trembles and he is grateful, that when his master releases his hands and steps aside, he doesn’t order him to get up.

His master moves a few paces away and turns to him, a bright wicked smile playing on his thin pale lips. He spreads his hands as if in a welcome, a distant mock welcome it seems to Mairon. This is the Ainu who is now his source of energy and inspiration, a home and an asylum.

Melkor lowers his arms and steps towards the nearby pine tree with low heavy branches, picks at the long and thin dark-green thorns idly.

“What do you know about pain, Mairon?” His master asks in a casual manner. He tears off the sharp needles and sends them scattering in the wind, who in turn snatches them up and carries away.

Before Mairon can open his mouth his master continues, “Everyone thinks I sang of it. But it is not true.” He huffs out a little laugh.

Melkor tears another tiny spear-like thorn from the branch, and raises it up, watching it with dull amusement, worn-off – or mock-up – delight in this weird kind of sadism.

He tilts his head and looks directly into Mairon’s eyes, “I only invented its agony. You see, pain is but a sign, a mere notification which disappears as soon as what causing it is dealt with. I enforced it to turn it into a tool. And I took great joy in studying it.”

Melkor holds up a pine needle, encrusted in ice that gleams in pale blue. Mairon watches as the needle in Melkor's hand heats up, ice melts away and it turns from green to umber and to scarlet, from scarlet to white and then, as the glow dies, to charcoal black. Finally it tumbles down, a mere cloud of ash, coming off the Vala’s hand in wide flakes.

“You will learn, Mairon. You will listen to pain and that is how you will get wiser. Besides,” he sighs, his tone changing when he adds as if to himself, “It's a whole new area for you to establish your dominion in. If you're good enough.”

He squints at Mairon somewhat doubtfully. And even though Mairon is not exactly sure he understands what’s going on, he swallows down a sour taste of annoyance. He is good enough. He is the best, better than anything Melkor ever dreamt of luring into his trap.

“I want you to learn suffering. For what is the worth of joy if it's permanent and everlasting?”

Trying not to feel alarmed, Mairon ventures, “But excessive pain is nonresultative, unproductive… and permanent pain loses its meaning too. It can only destruct and distract.”

His master tears off another thorn. Mairon admires his gestures. Elegant fingers hold the base of a needle to pry it out of its bedding on the branch. The thorn comes off easily, the branch waves slightly, sad to part with a piece of its clothing. How the thorn moves in between artistic fingers of one hand, how its point bites into the pad of an index finger of the other hand. If Mairon didn’t know better he would say those fingers possess a great delicate skill to make an abomination look like a loving caress.

“Under pain you grow. When you are able to understand pain without obliterating it, you become the most powerful creature.”

Melkor heats the thorn up until it’s bright red and averts his full attention to Mairon. All faraway unused amusement is gone from his eyes. Melkor paces to stand behind kneeling Mairon.

“Don't worry. I am generous. I will give you truly marvelous gifts.”

He reaches around and grips Mairon’s chin forcing his face up. Mairon’s hands are clasped at his chest, and the nails stick into the flesh of his palms. Unsure of what is going to happen, he swallows nervously and his movement feels so mortifyingly acute under Melkor's palm. Those gentle fingers run up and down the arched column of Mairon’s neck, raising a chill up on his skin.

Melkor bids the scared Maia to tilt his head to the side, swipes his luxurious ginger hair over his shoulder carefully and grips his ear. “Now keep still.” And oh, Mairon does.

“The ceremony of piercing flesh I have arisen for magical purpose as a ritual indicating subjugation, it will symbolize your dependence upon me and also your willingness to learn from me.”

He punctures the heated needle through the earlobe, and it kindles in sharp pain. Something this simple should not be so painful. But it is and Mairon hisses, sucks in a breath through gritted teeth.

His master extracts the needle and loops something cold in the wound. Then he wrenches Mairon's head and hair to the other side quite unceremoniously this time and repeats the process. Pain pulses without mercy.

Then his master leaves him, and the lack of contact increases the pain making Mairon miss the Vala’s brutal touch, mourn the distance which suddenly seems too great. Master steps in front of Mairon and looks down at him. “You will not forget who you belong to.”

 _Never_ , Mairon thinks.

The needle, still in Melkor’s fingers, loses its glow. Mairon wishes he could beg, oh please, touch me again, let me get warm in your magnificence. Melkor discards the needle now blackened and dull into the snow and says, “Rise. And _listen_.”

Mairon does as he’s told, all for only not to be redundant, he’ll do anything it takes to feel those clever hands on him again. He listens to the pain whispering in his ears. Soft now but persevering. And listening to it he forgets about its anguish. Only curiosity and wonder remain.

“Now, one more thing before you go back home...”

Immediately Mairon’s concentration is lost amid the cold rocks, the dead pine needles.

“But... Master, I thought from now on I should stay with you!”

Melkor sighs, clearly feeling unjustly overburdened by the need to explain.

“You are going to be my spy there, Mairon. The pain will whisper to you my orders. This is your first task.”

Tentatively, with a jerky movement Mairon lifts his hand to his ear and touches the tiny ring. He tries to move it a little to check how it sits in its notch and on the spot his ear inflames with pain. He winces and drops his hand. The puncture throbs, relentless, and forlornly he looks up at his new cruel master who’s watching him with intent.

Melkor approaches and places both warm smooth palms on Mairon’s temples and squeezes a little bit. Strange music flows into Mairon’s mind, evoking visions unknown before and he tastes its intensity and finds that he loves it. The new tune unfamiliar and authoritative weaves itself into Mairon’s personal melodies, shrouding his mind, and distorts some of them. Mairon grimaces but then quickly Melkor releases him. He stumbles backwards and reaching tentatively inside he finds new knowledge, new idea.

Mairon looks up in awe. “Is it…? Oh."

Probing further he realizes it’s a new skill originally not meant to be for Maiar of Aulë and it is now lodged firmly inside his mind.

"T-thank you, my Lord.”

His master is smiling.

 “You are prepared now. Fly now, Mairon, and do as I said. Prove yourself useful. Let’s see how truly faithful you are.”

“As you command, my Lord.” And he succumbs to the urge to try out his new tenure.

Carefully he moves the atoms of his body and rearranges it according to the music he now hears in his mind, as for the first time in his life he shapeshifts into a bat.

He spreads leathery wings and rises in the air, night comes into focus, illuminated in far many lights than he saw before. High in the frost air his spirit burns with happiness and delight, when the wind carries him forward. Yes, yes, yes, my Lord. Anything for you.

He comes now as stranger. He comes as enemy. He has become those eyes under the branches looking and looking. Observing and memorizing. Ears in an empty room. A shadow in the night. He must be everywhere now.

The piercings in his ears throb and he plunges forward to erase the nasty feeling, but then he remembers Melkor's words and instead listens. And the distress subsides leaving space for exploration. The more he listens the more he hears in this dull pain's whisperings, commands and encouragements to him. Yes, now he understands.


End file.
